nces of a desire to turn every one possible into the figure
of a head, a fact still more apparent in the monumental inscriptions.

Turning to the ruins of Copan as represented by Stephens and others, we
find on the altars and elsewhere the same death's-head with huge
incisors so common in Mexico, and on the statues the snake-skin so often
repeated on those of Mexico. Here we find the _Cipactli_ as a huge
crocodile head,[52] also the monkey's head used as a hieroglyphic.[53]

The pendant lip or lolling tongue, which ever it be, of the central
figure of the Mexican calendar stone is found also in the central figure
of the sun tablet of Palenque[54] and a dozen times over in the
inscriptions.

The long, elephantine, Tlaloc nose, so often repeated in the Mexican
codices, is even more common and more elaborate in the Maya manuscripts
and sculptures, and, as we learn from a MS. paper by Mr. Gustav Eisen,
lately received by the Smithsonian Institution, has also been found at
Copan.

Many more points or items of agreement might be pointed out, but these
will suffice to show that one must have borrowed from the other, for it
is impossible that isolated civilizations should have produced such
identical results in details even down to conventional figures. Again we
ask the question, Which was the borrower? We hesitate to accept what
seems to be the legitimate conclusion to be drawn from these facts, as
it compels us to take issue with the view almost universally held. One
thing is apparent, viz, that the Mexican symbols could never have grown
out of the Maya hieroglyphics. That the latter might have grown out of
the former is not impossible.

If we accept the theory that there was a Toltec nation preceding the
advent of the Aztec, which, when broken up and driven out of Mexico,
proceeded southward, where probably colonies from the main stock had
already been planted, we may be able to solve the enigma.

If this people were, as is generally supposed, the leaders in Mexican
and Central American civilization, it is possible that the Aztecs, a
more savage and barbarous people, borrowed their civilization from the
former, and, having less tendency toward development, retained the
original symbols and figures of the former, adding only ornamentation
and details, but not advancing to any great extent toward a written
language.

Some such supposition as this, I believe, is absolutely necessary to
explain the facts mentioned. But e